In this article God is compared with a highly developed civilization. Similarities (and some differences) between God and a civilization are noted. General philosophy of God and specifically of Christ is developed starting with this viewpoint. It is worth to note that within this viewpoint the Trinity of God does not look contradictory or paradoxical. The place of the mankind in the world of God is described as unlimited development with help of God.

Understanding of God is difficult. It seems that at large a human can reason about God only with analogies.

Many different analogies for God were proposed. Some of them are good analogies and some completely pointless ones.

The first analogy which comes to mind is the analogy of God with a human. This is natural for Abrahamic religions as (Ge. 1:26) “God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness””.

The comparison of God with a man is a good analogy, but it lacks a proper explanation of Holy Trinity. It was proposed in theological vernacular the analogy of God with a mentally disordered person having three personalities, but in my opinion that analogy is entirely pointless.

In this article I propose a different analogy to describe God. God is similar to a civilization. This is indeed a very deep analogy. In this analogy there is even place for analogies of Christ (like contact with a civilization) and of Holy Spirit (like technology of a civilization). It is not that we could rigorously conclude existence and properties of Christ and Holy Spirit purely philosophically without help of Bible but nevertheless Christ and Holy Spirit (and therefore Holy Trinity) have a natural place in this philosophy.

With this theology there is a good fit of the place of the mankind in the Universe as unlimited development with help of God.

As such, I consider a civilization the best known analogy for studying God.

Below I describe some similarities and some differences of a civilization and God.

Note that speaking about civilizations I don't mention aliens (except of this sentence) because we are mostly interested in common properties of civilizations and God, not in how a civilization may be split into parts, (Rom. 2:11) “For there is no partiality with God.” what may mean that analyzing God by analogy with something split into parts may be not effective.

Consider infinite Universe. Various civilizations which have reached different levels of development live In the Universe. (Why I believe the Universe is infinite? Read below.)

Because the Universe is infinite, it is natural to assume existence of civilizations of all possible levels of development. Extending this reasoning, we may conclude that there exist civilizations of infinitely high level of development.

Now arises the natural question, whether there exist several different civilizations of the infinite level development or one united civilization of the infinite level of development. If we call a civilization with the infinite level of development god, this question gets reformulated: whether there are several different gods or one god? (More exactly, an infinitely developed civilization in the Universe is a representation of God, not God Himself, and I will consider this below.)

Well, what means “there exists just one civilization with the infinite level of development”? We could split a civilization into parts and call them different civilizations. So the key of this question is not quantity but unity. I mean that the question whether there is only one god should be reformulated: are all the entities with the infinite level of development united with each other? Do they do one common business? Are they in peace with each other? Some translators of Bible prefer to say “God is united” instead of “There is one God”.

In other words, when we say “there is one god” we mean that all infinitely developed civilizations coincide. What do I mean when I say to coincide? This is a hard question. I am not able to define it exactly. This is a social relation (if we consider it from the civilizational viewpoint) and social relations are difficult to be defined exactly. I'm going to attempt to describe some of its properties. First, all gods are in peace with each other. If we had two infinitely developed civilization at war with each other, this would mean that there are two different gods. The second aspect of unity of God is that He is personal. This means that He has a united opinion and united decisions, not several independent entities which have different opinions or make different decisions.

According to the doctrine of Holy Trinity God has not one but three persons.

Well, in some aspects God is different from what we call a civilization. For example, a civilization has a point where it began but God is eternal. But nevertheless I will compare God with a civilization in the rest of this article.

Thus I conclude that God is similar to a highly developed civilization, yet He is highly united, personal, eternal, and infinite.

To research properties of Christ with pure philosophical method seems impossible for a human. Here I will use some Bible references. However I will manage this as asking philosophical questions (or assumptions) and checking guessed answers guided by Bible.

The contact of a civilization consists mainly of electromagnetic waves.

So it is natural to think that Christ is electromagnetic waves.

In fact, Bible teaches that Christ is exactly all electromagnetic waves of the Universe.

(Jn. 8:12) “... Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world...”” and (Jn. 9:5) “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

I understand this as that electromagnetic waves of the Universe are a complete characterization of Christ. But note that Christ reaches outside the Universe, He is electromagnetic waves only while He is in the world (Universe).

A curious reader may doubt my interpretation by (Mt. 5:14) “You are the light of the world.” Are these to whom Jesus speak electromagnetic waves of the Universe? Indeed they are.

(Eph. 2:6) “... made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. The word “sit” here is in Aorist that is in perfect past time. This means that we are already on heavens. This is counter-intuitive because we do not feel that we are on heavens. I conclude that we are in heavens as electromagnetic waves. It can be said that we together form Christ (thus Christ may be considered as an organization or a collective). But Christ is Christ only without partiality. We are the electromagnetic waves of the Universe with partiality because every one of us is a part of electromagnetic waves of the heavens.

How can we being people be also electromagnetic waves in the heaven? I understand this as existence of one-to-one correspondence between the structure of the electromagnetic waves on the heavens and us living on the planet. I think the same applies to Christ's human nature. In the man Jesus was mapped the structure of the light of the Universe. It is hard to believe and looks like an absurd but this what Gospel requires us to believe. I continue to wonder what may be a reason of this one-to-one correspondence.

From the fact that Christ is electromagnetic waves of the Universe follows that the Universe is infinite, because Christ is infinite. Thus Universe contains not only our meta-galaxy which is known to be finite.

Christ is also called logos (word) in the Bible because He is the word of God (in the form of electromagnetic waves).

Postulate: The knowledge of a highly developed civilization is expressed in electromagnetic waves it generates.

In other words, Christ is wisdom of God. (1Cor. 1:24) “Christ is ... the wisdom of God.”

This means just two simple things:

•The word of God is wise.

•God has said all His wisdom in His word, that is Christ is all the wisdom of God, not a part of the full wisdom.

Because God is infinitely developed, His wisdom (knowledge) contains all truths and only truth. In other words, Christ is (exactly) the truth. (Jn. 14:6) “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.””)

I've said above that infinite developed civilization is God. It is not quite so. The infinitely developed civilization in the Universe is called Christ in Christianity. I will argue below that Christ is God but only conditionally.

Existence of one God may be understood as the same as complete peace between its parts. Above I've said that we are not able to define unity of God exactly. But it is conceivable that this unity is the same as “peace in all aspects”. The unity is interchange of information that is Christ.

A central concept in the issue of inter-civilization and intra-civilizational relations is peace.

According to Bible, Christ is the peace. I think this is equivalent to saying that Christ is the unity of God.

(Eph. 2:13-19)

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off are made near in the blood of Christ.

14 For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition,

15 having abolished in the flesh the hostility, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man of the two, making peace;

16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having killed the hostility thereby.

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far off and to those who were near.

18 For through him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

19 So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God,

That means that Christ is the peace union for the entire Universe. He is more, He is the peace with God.

Peace is great in the sense that to prevent war it is necessary something as great as Christ. Thus it can be said that Christ is prevention of war or absence of war.

A paradoxical outcome of this is that seemingly such as little thing as absence of war needs to be as great as Christ.

It can be compared to that the news “Peace is established, no war anymore” would be a very great news.

(Luk. 9:20) “He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.””. This means that Christ is the contact of God that is the mean through which God communicates with Himself. Christ lives by the Father; Father also lives by Christ, that is Christ is essential for Father's existence. (Jon. 14:10) “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” (alternatively translated “I exist by the Father, and the Father exists by me”).

Peace and wisdom are related: Wisdom is internal peace. When neurones are in peace with each other, not at war, our brain would be more clever than any brain! Peace of God is above (that is, more clever than) any mind (“surpasses all understanding”) (Phil. 4:7) “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.”

The question “Is Christ God?” is similar to the question: Is the sequence of digits such as 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3... a real number? A real number can be expressed by such a sequence and then we could say that it is a real number, but only conditionally, dependently on what we mean by real number. (Real numbers can be defined not only as sequences of digits but also in several other ways, for example as splitting the set of rational numbers into two parts. All these ways are equivalent but different.). Like this Christ is conditionally God, that is whether He is or He isn't God depends on what we mean by God.

I will sometimes put analogy of Christ with a civilization, and sometimes put analogy of God with a civilization, dependently on a context.

Trinity is (obviously) also conditionally God. For Trinity it is particularly clear that it is God only conditionally, because clearly in general God is not a set consisting of three elements.

Suppose one wants to do something with something inside a closed vessel. We would have a trouble to do this. But a higher civilization would have an ability to move individual atoms inside a closed vessel. A force of their technology would come inside the vessel and move with individual atoms.

Because it moves individual atoms, it would behave like a gas.

The technology of God is called Holy Spirit (the word “spirit” may mean a gas). This is the force which can enter for example inside human body and move individual atoms, for example to cure a disease.

It is believed by many Christians that every God's will is accomplished as a move of Holy Spirit. Thus Holy Spirit is fully (conditionally) God.

Together with above described Christ being conditionally God this forms the Holy Trinity consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The function of Holy Spirit is salvation that is repairing things, especially these things which are inside closed vessels which cannot be opened. It is so because anyway all things are done by God and the only thing left needed is repairing broken things. And things which are not inside closed vessels can be repaired without some direct help of God.

Divinity of Holy Spirit is natural in the civilizational consideration, as in the modern and in an above modern civilization the technology contains full value of the knowledge of the civilization.

In this civilizational approach to describe God the doctrine of Trinity does not look contradictory or paradoxical.

I define person as something which speaks and hears. Different persons differ by what they say and hear.

For a civilization we would not find contradictory that it would have three distinct representative agencies. (An agency is a form of a person.) Yet all three would necessary work in agreement with each other to properly represent the civilization. This is similar to that God who has three persons is not a contradiction. Three persons of God act in complete agreement, so that God is not divided.

Note that because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are different “agencies”, we may pray to every one of them. We may pray also simply to God without specifying a particular person.

Don't be tricked into thinking that I suppose that divine persons differ only in what they speak and hear. There are other differences. For example, Father is greater than the Son: (Jn. 14:28) “... the Father is greater than I”.

A prayer may be addressed to any of the three agencies officially representing God. When somebody is praying and God hears it, it differs from simply “God knows” (as He knows everything) in regard that the God's hearing of the prayer is His official reception of the information.

A son of somebody when he grows becomes similar to his father. This is a definition of the word son.

Christ is Son of God. This means that Christ goes to the Father that is becomes the same as His Father.

Well, indeed Christ does not move. He is like a river: a river moves and does not move at the same time, in the same way Christ goes to His Father, but Christ does not move. The following Bible fragment says that Christ does not change:

(Heb. 1:10-12)

10 And, “You, Lord, in the beginning, laid the foundation of the earth. The heavens are the works of your hands.

11 They will perish, but you continue. They all will grow old like a garment does.

12 As a mantle you will roll them up, And they will be changed; But you are the same. Your years will not fail.”

We are children of God, this means that we develop to become like God.

Christ also is called the son of man in Gospel. This means that Christ is the final result of development of mankind.

This is a very good news because it means that the development of mankind will be never stalled but will continue without any limit.

Jesus is the final result of development of the mankind. In other words, Jesus is just a guest from infinitely far future.

It is not mankind due which Christ exists, but infinite development of mankind was made possible only due come of Christ 2000 years ago.

Now consider (Rev. 10:6) “... there will be no longer time”.

I think in this Bible verse the word time should be understood as “ordering of events in which proceeding events can be causes of following events but not vice versa”. “No time” would mean that there is no this order anymore that is following events may also cause proceeding. In other words this means that unrestricted time travel is possible. I think that there will be indeed time in the sense that clocks and other physical objects dealing with time will continue to function. I think in this way because physical objects continue to exists after Rev. 10:6 and these would be unlikely to continue to exist without time (Rev. 11:1 describes a temple with physical characteristics such as size; Rev. 11:13 describes an earthquake, etc. and even in Rev. 22 the last chapter of Apocalypse is described a river of water which cannot be without time as the river must flow).

A common scenario in Sci Fi is when a civilization returns by a time machine into the past to adjust its own development. I believe it is what Christ really does with mankind.

For a loop in time this is necessary avoiding contradictions such as the well known paradox of somebody killing his own father before his birth in traveling in the past. I think God's commandments are intended exactly for this, avoidance of such contradictions. For example, following the commandment “Don't kill” makes impossible to kill the father as in the mentioned paradox.

So after the Second Come of Christ we will take advantage of the civilization of the highest possible development level without waiting infinite time for this. This is just what “come of Christ” means.

It is worth to mention that Islam has a very pessimistic attitude that “Allah is one and has no sons”. This would mean that nobody reaches the infinite level of development and every development is stalled on some stage. It well agrees with Muslim belief of “materialistic” paradise with pleasures of good foods and women, not infinite development towards God offered by Bible.

What is a dream? It is the best we can imagine of. So Christ Jesus is the best we can imagine of.

This is twofold:

1.First this means that Christ is good and nothing we imagine can be better than Him.

2.Second this means, that our common imagination is good enough to attain Christ.

Also: (Rom. 8:24) “... we were saved in hope ...” or “... we were saved in dream ...”. It means that our salvation consists of dreams (like as a table consists of atoms). It also means that our dream (the best we can hope for) is exactly what we will become when our salvation is accomplished. We will be exactly what we hope to be.

It is natural to think that all development may continue only in the highest civilization, that is all other development outside of it stalls at some time.

In other words, the highest civilization is exactly the (eternal) development.

In Gospel development is called life. So Christ is the eternal life: (1Jn. 5:20) “... This is the true God, and eternal life.” (Jn. 11:25) “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life...”” and (Jn. 14:6) “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life...””) Every life is a part of Christ. Note that true life is always eternal because it is inherent characteristic of life to continue.

All life is in Christ: (Gal. 2:20) “... no longer I that live, but Christ living in me ...” This means that our characterization as being alive means that we are in Christ and Christ is our life.